The flag flew at half-staff at Vermont's Rutland Country Club Friday in honor of avid golfer Carly Ferro. The 17-year-old high school varsity player was killed Wednesday night. Rutland City Police said an out-of-control driver was responsible. They identified him as 23-year-old Alex Spanos.

Spanos was allegedly drunk and high on gases he huffed from aerosol cans when investigators said he plowed into Ferro as she left her job at the Rutland Discount Food & Liquidation Center. Ferro had just ended her shift and was heading outside to meet her father who came to pick her up. Witnesses told police the car Spanos was driving came rocketing like a missile toward the store parking lot where her dad was waiting. The impact severely injured him, and crushed the high schooler against a wall, killing her.

Spanos denied a host of charges against him. For now, he remains jailed on $200,000 bail, as the court case against him proceeds

Inside the discount store Friday, workers wore white ribbons to remember the teen they said had so much promise. "I can't imagine how it must be for her mother," coworker Pam Sokol told New England Cable News, choking back tears. "And her dad, actually being pinned in the car and not being able to help her? Very difficult."

At Rutland High School, classmates wrote messages on their friend's locker and wore purple, said to be Ferro's favorite color. Principal Bill Olsen called her a standout scholar and athlete, who was a friend to everyone. "I never saw her in a bad mood," Olsen told NECN. "Every time you ran into her, it was 'Hey how's it going?' Everything was positive."

After the brief court hearing, people in attendance declined comment to reporters, but their raw emotions were obvious.

A memorial service for Carly Ferro is scheduled for Saturday morning at the Rutland Country Club. According to an obituary posted in the online edition of the Rutland Herald newspaper, memorial contributions can be sent to the Vermont Golf Association Scholarship Fund, in lieu of flowers. The address for the fund is P.O. Box 1612 Station A, Rutland, VT 05701.